PREFACE
The external history of a religious tradition often seems di-
vorced from the raison d'etre of faith. The spiritual quest is an
interior journey; it is a psychic rather than a political drama. It
is preoccupied with liturgy, doctrine, contemplative disci-
plines and an exploration of the heart, not with the clash of
current events. Religions certainly have a life outside the soul.
Their leaders have to contend with the state and affairs of the
world, and often relish doing so. They fight with members of
other faiths, who seem to challenge their claim to a monopoly
of absolute truth; they also persecute their co-religionists for
interpreting a tradition differently or for holding heterodox
beliefs. Very often priests, rabbis, imams and shamans are just
as consumed by worldly ambition as regular politicians. But all
this is generally seen as an abuse of a sacred ideal. These power
struggles are not what religion is really about, but an unworthy
distraction from the life of the spirit, which is conducted far
from the madding crowd, unseen, silent and unobtrusive. In-
deed, in many faiths, monks and mystics lock themselves away
from the world, since the clamour and strife of history is re-
garded as incompatible with a truly religious life.
In the Hindu tradition, history is dismissed as evanescent,
unimportant and insubstantial. The philosophers of ancient